how do you know your programmer isnt ripping you off?
 

If your programmer has access to everything, how do you know if he might be stealing?

i had two very good friends programmers, i offered them to be part of my business, both had no time to do my ideas, but then both had done what was impossible, and both are now making money in adult from my ideas. of course, no friends anymore, and both was old closest friends ... shame that money are more than friendship for some ...

if u dont trust your own people then lock them out and learn how to program yourself. if u dont possess the technical skills to manage a programmer then use prebuilt software and give limited access.

for example, if you had a PornCMS hosted site, your programmer would only be in the templates and/or content areas. he wouldn't be in your billing account or the server files.

if you can't use prebuilt software, then hire a company, not a solo programmer.

Non-Disclosure, Non-Compete and Confidentiality Agreements are your friends...

how do you know you've chosen the right anything? accountant, lawyer, mechanic, doctor, dentist, host, sponsor, processor, etc...

Anyone can join a paysite and rip the whole thing, if they want. Evidence all over the Net.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:thumbsup

A good rule of thumb, is to consider that EVERYONE will rip you off, and give access accordingly.

There's no way to know if they did or not. If you want a coder to edit an existing script for you they've gotta download it, sift through the code to find the part that has to be changed, etc. However, most programmers probably won't steal your shit...they have no need, they are programmers and can write their own to their own specifications. Ideas on the other hand, might be stolen but ideas can just as easily be stolen by anyone visiting your site.

Most probably do jack your members db etc "just in case", don't fuck them over. Many admins will put backdoor access as well.

Happens to the best of companies.

reputation, ask for references and check with previous employers (that's what I do)

call it intuition... I would like to hire you for a quick synopsis.

I dont,this is exactly reason why i took programming course.

yup, that's the thing.

If we had a way to hire only "right" people, 90% of world's population would be unemployed and dying of hunger.

Study your websites' log file's analytics for unexplained URLs being exited to in large numbers and examine the exit pages' code.


Examine your hard coding and sub-routines for references to unknown websites which could be a big clue for shaving traffic, sales. etc.

Just a suggestion.....

:thumbsup

trust no one.

Avoid most programmers at GFY and you'll be safe ...

I have several suggestions. First, the same way that you first address the much bigger concern of making sure they don't suck (most do). You work with people who have a long established reputation for competency and integrity. You can also use the principle of least privilege, meaning people only get the access they need. Your PHP programmer probably doesn't need root access, so under this principle he doesn't get root access.

Then, before having them do the gigantic job, building your whole new system for all of your dozens of sites, you test them out on smaller jobs which require less access. If they break your trust on something small, you don't trust them with something big. If they insist on absolute integrity on something minor, you can be assured they'll act with integrity in larger matters. One guy put it well a while back when he said "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much". (Jesus according to Luke). That is, honest people are honest, while liars lie and thieves steal. They guy who brags to you about what he did to some other guy will do the same to you.

I've started implementing that same idea right here on GFY. Lately we've had people posting about stealing cars they were supposed to be leasing, sending spam, all kinds of crap. That tells me that for now those people are lacking integrity. We will not be working with them.

So to summarize:
Reputation
Least privilege
Small things - honest people are honest and liars lie.

Saw that thread, debbieN = another stupid bitch.